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Doug Thayer sums it all up

10.25.11

I’ve finally got around to reading Irreantum 12:2, the fall/winter 2010 edition of the Association for Mormon Letters literary journal. Okay, so, how come none of you have mentioned that Doug Thayer sums up the entire field of Mormon fiction in its pages? Maybe you did, and I just wasn’t listening. And I don’t agree [...]

Destiny, Demons, and Freewill in Dan Wells’s John Wayne Cleaver Books

4.19.11

Title: I Am Not a Serial Killer
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Tor
Genre: YA suspense/horror
Year Published: 2010 [My copy of the book has a copyright date of 2010, with a listing of “First Edition: April 2010.” Yet I know this book was actually published originally in 2009, and it won a 2009 Whitney Award for best first novel [...]

A list of my literary interests

3.16.11

So just for the record, here is a (probably incomplete) list of my literary and cultural interests:

canon formation and promulgation (especially as presented by anthologies, syllabi and awards
the intersection of literary and genre fiction, especially literary speculative fiction (slipstream, weird) and speculative literary fiction (allegory, magic realism, folk realism)
indie/DIY publishing and marketing
narrative theory, especially point [...]

Review of The Tree House by Doug Thayer

8.11.10

Title: The Tree House
Author: Douglas Thayer
Publisher: Zarahemla Books
Genre: Adult Fiction
Year Published: 2009
Number of Pages: 384
Binding: Trade Paperback
ISBN10: 0978797175
ISBN13: 978-0978797171
Price: $16.95
Reviewed by Jonathan Langford
Note: I received a free copy of this book from the author, in trade for a free copy of my book, No Going Back.
Harris Thatcher has pretty much everything a 15-year-old boy could [...]

Some Definitional Thoughts About YA (Mormon) Fiction

6.30.10

Author’s note: This started as a post on my own blog on whether or not No Going Back is a YA novel. I showed it to William Morris, who suggested that I post it here. I quote from his comments: “I know you are worried about readers tiring of hearing about No Going Back, but [...]

Writing Mormon Literature for a non-Mormon Audience

3.26.10

Note: This started as an entry for my personal/book blog, which focuses primarily (so far) on No Going Back and its reception. However, I quickly realized that what I was writing was taking a far more theoretical/literary direction. So I decided to cross-post it here, with apologies if needed, on the theory that I’d love [...]

In the Company of Angels: the love song of David Farland

3.25.10

Orson Scott Card said that his historical novel, Saints, was a “love song to my people.” Full of fiery characters debating quintessential Mormon dilemmas against the backdrop of a historically-charged time period, it was a ballad that delighted and disturbed both mainstream Mormon readers and OSC’s readers who subscribed to other faiths. David Farland’s In [...]

Interview with Shannon Hale: The Actor and the Housewife, Pt. Two

3.16.10

Part One may be found here.
Both Austenland and A & H tackle romantic fantasies and the nature of romantic comedies, their “grotesque mimicry of actual love (A & H 304).”  And when Becky tries to decide whether or not she could actually love Felix romantically, she writes a screenplay with a movie ending.  But the [...]